Parliamentary Agenda-Setting and Responses to Crisis Emergence in the Context of Legislative Initiatives Concerning Human Rights: a Comparative Perspective

The paper concerns the response to emerging crisis phenomena by political actors authorized to initiate legislation at the parliamentary level. The primary focus is on initiatives addressing the scope of human rights and mechanisms for their protection. This area constitutes a critical element of legal regulations proposed following crises, particularly those that emerged suddenly and were difficult to predict. Such legislative proposals may be initiated by governments seeking to adjust emergency regimes and frameworks to the needs of the hour (e.g., the newly created state of sanitary emergency in France). An equally important issue, however, is the response by political actors located outside the executive branch. This may particularly concern opposition parties that question, at least to some extent, concrete policies pursued by governments to address a crisis. Generally speaking, opposition parties may seek to align themselves with the government’s response, but they may also take actions to protect freedom-oriented rights from excessive restrictions, for example, measures that violate the principle of proportionality. Hence, our main hypothesis is as follows: anti-crisis legislation, especially that adopted in the first weeks of the emerging crisis situation, is more likely to include exceptional and restrictive measures (such as: a. emergency powers and authorities, b. broad delegations of legislative authority, c. restrictions on civil liberties, d. definitions of new criminal offenses, e. sunset clauses, f. special legislation – in the sense of dealing only with a single event), whereas the reaction of the anti-government opposition comes later, that is, when the legislative response to a given crisis has already stabilized to some extent. However, if the opposition generally supports the government in this respect, initiatives that go in the same direction may emerge all the time. This is due to such initiatives being proposed mainly to capitalize on the government’s policy, which, under these extraordinary circumstances, enjoys rather broad public support. In order to verify these assumptions, a comparative approach will be used, covering selected countries affected by similar crisis phenomena (e.g. the migration crisis, the Covid-19 pandemic).